Howdy all, everything is normal. You're in a peaceful place. Look at the tree outside. Isn't it perfect?

Okay, snap out of it. This is a normal post. Stop questioning the tree. It's there. I can see it. I can even touch it if I want to go outside, but I don't want to go outside. I never want to go outside.

Okay, snap out of it.

I been away awhile to tend to the illness and death of my sainted grandmother Donna, who was the toughest son of a bitch God put on this green earth.

My days splitting my time between Los Angeles and Bakersfield are winding down now, as I plan on going to a cookout we're having to celebrate her life, which is not a funeral, because she didn't want a damn funeral. Her ashes will go under her pepper tree and we will eat pork shoulder and brisket and life will be a wide and sun-drenched road, the highwayside strewn with the charred ruins of a million tomorrows.

I don't know how long I've been gone, but here's the news:

-I went to Tom Petty's final run at the Hollywood Bowl, which was life-affirming. He was the soundtrack of my childhood and his death really threw me for a loop. I'll talk about it on the next episode. If anybody wants to chime in on that episode to talk Petty, send me an email or find me in lots of places on the stupid computer that I hate.

-I have some thoughts about Bakersfield to get out because it's a big character in my book and I've been up there more than I ever thought I'd be there again.

-Went to go see Chapo out kinda by mid-city. That was fun. It's wild to see them go from something that the Street Fight boys started to something that can book 600 people or so in Los Angeles. Saw Felix and Amber and them. These kids today sure love them some damn politics.

-I read Mike Sacks' STINKER LETS LOOSE, a hilarious parody of trucker exploitation novelizations, something so lost to time that you'd think they'd be impossible to parody. Hugely recommended.

-Two weeks into working on a real-ass television show, the details of which I'll be sharing once it feels like good hoodoo to share them. It's not a huge damn deal or anything, but it's a cool idea and I'm working with some cool people who know the hell out of what they're doing. It's a political comedy half-hour that's nothing like the neoliberal wasteland we have on television now.

-I'm starting to think this guy Donald Trump might be BAD NEWS.

-Pretty amped to see BLADE RUNNER 2049. Just saw the original and it's pretty wild. Nobody ever told me how thoroughly it's a noir.